One potentially dangerous condition is the use of a vehicle telephone by the vehicle driver while driving the vehicle. The use of telematics in general and particularly cellular telephones by drivers while driving has been found to increase the possibility of an accident since such a telephone not only diverts the driver's attention from driving, but also generally requires the use of at least one of the driver's hands and distract the driver's eyes from the road and traffic. In fact, many states and countries have enacted legislation requiring that telephones used in vehicles by drivers while driving must be of the “hands free” type and usually telematics equipment carries a warning to educate and discourage the driver about the risk of using these devices while driving. However, such legislation is difficult to enforce and education is not usually effective in assuring driver compliance. Moreover, even where the vehicle is equipped with a “hands free” telephone, drivers nevertheless still frequently use one hand for holding or dialing the telephone. When one hand is occupied by holding a telephone, the danger of causing an accident in an emergency situation is increased because of the additional reaction time required to properly grip the steering wheel with both hands. Similar danger exists when the driver attempts to control audio and video equipment, e.g. Radio, Music CD, DVD, Books on tape etc., or when the driver attempts to change environmental controls like adjusting the heat or air conditioning, or other vehicle settings.
There are other potentially dangerous conditions and inherent risks in driving that depends on the driving act itself, such as rapidly accelerating or decelerating, excessive maneuvering, merging to or exiting a freeway, passing, changing lanes, changing gears, depressing the clutch, driving at high speed, negotiating a turn, braking, reverse-driving, or a stress condition on the part of the driver, that could increase the possibility of an accident should the driver be distracted by activation of the telephone or other signal or device. This inherent risk is also dependent on the driving purpose as well, for example, the risk in driving a police cruiser is inherently riskier then in driving a sedan, and driving a delivery van has different risk than driving the family van.
Herbert et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,188,315 and Brown, U.S. Pat. No. 6,353,778, disclose systems for avoiding preset potentially dangerous conditions while operating a vehicle having a vehicle telephone, but the systems described in those patents are of relatively limited application, and do not provide for avoiding dangerous conditions or to managing risk and individualizing the warnings to individual driving skills or application and to combinations of events and environmental conditions.